Erik Fasick was working hard on a master's degree at Penn State Harrisburg last spring when he developed pink eye. Both eyes crusted over. With final exams coming up, he could not see.

So the young man went to see Sal, a practitioner of powwow, the Pennsylvania German art of faith healing.

For three nights, Sal laid his hands on Fasick's eyes and chanted powwow prayers and his own doggerel.

"I felt a warm sensation shooting through my eyes," Fasick told a packed house at Ephrata's Eicher Arts Center Wednesday night.

"It was almost as if I was there in my body but I couldn't move."

His pink eye disappeared.

"I was also taking medicine at the same time," Fasick explained. "I can't honestly say whether it was one or the other."

Fasick, executive director of the Pennsylvania German Society, spoke about his experiences with powwow to a rapt audience at a meeting of the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley.

During his lecture, he showed the only known video footage of a powwow session — one of his pink-eye encounters with Sal — and revealed that he himself has practiced powwow several times on family members and friends.

Several of his listeners noted that they, too, have had experiences with powwow doctors.

Clarence Spohn, the historical society's president, said his uncle cured his poison ivy when he was a young boy through the powwow practice of "blowing fire" — that is, blowing the poison away from his body.

Fasick, of Lemoyne, has researched powwow primarily in the Harrisburg area. Sal, of suburban Paxtonia, is the only powwow practitioner he could find there. The practice is more prevalent, in Berks and Lancaster counties.

Powwow — or "braucherei" in Pennsylvania German — has been described as "magico-religious healing."

With its roots in medieval Catholicism and paganism, powwow flourished among rural Pennsylvania Germans.

Powwowing is used customarily to cure pain, burns, warts, bleeding and various childhood ailments. Some powwow doctors treat animals. Sal powwows plants.

The process generally involves verbal chants or prayers, usually repeated three times for the Trinity, a laying on of hands and herbal remedies.

A powwow doctor "takes on" the patient's affliction. After the transfer, the practitioner literally washes his hands, freeing both patient and practitioner of the disease.

"The powwow doctor is not the source of the healing process," Fasick explained. "The powwow doctor is a conduit between the patient and God."

Some literature goes along with all of this. Best known is the book "The Long Lost Friend" by Johann Georg Hohmann.

Some practitioners also use the Bible, Fasick said, although he has found only one reference to a specific verse. Ezekiel 16:6 is used to stop bleeding.

"It's not a grand, elaborate ceremony," Fasick noted of the powwow ritual. "It's cut and dried and then it's done."

Sal is an unusual practitioner, Fasick said, because he is not Pennsylvania German but Italian American and self taught. The idea for faith healing came to him in a dream; then he found written materials to get started.

Sal taught Fasick how to perform simple powwow procedures. He has eliminated a friend's wart, for example.

Sal also taught Fasick's wife how to stop her own migraine headaches.

Few practitioners of powwow publicly admit to the practice these days, Fasick said. A sensational murder case connected with powwow in York in 1928 drove many practitioners underground.

"There are still some that are out there," he said. "They're not going to put out a shingle."

POWWOWING MAY CURE:
•   Pain, including headaches.

•    Burns.

•    Warts.

•    Bleeding.

•    Childhood ailments.

CONTACT US: jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781